


Divided Loyalties

by Skullharvester



Category: Diablo III, Heroes of the Storm (Video Game), Warcraft - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Skeletons, Undead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29595273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skullharvester/pseuds/Skullharvester
Summary: Can love bloom, even on a battlefield?  Leoric isn't sure, but he's willing to try his luck with Kel'Thuzad, despite knowing that the lich loyally serves another king.
Relationships: Kel'Thuzad (Warcraft)/Leoric (Diablo)
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a REALLY old fanfiction that I believe I wrote long before Kel'Thuzad was announced as a playable character. I don't know why, but I fell in love with the idea of this ship when it crossed my mind back then. Re-reading this fanfic to clean it up and post it here gave me warm feels inside.
> 
> Enjoy and have fun!
> 
> If you liked this tale, please drop me a kudos and/or a comment to let me know if you'd like to see more!
> 
> Thank you, and have a wonderful night!

While mounted atop his steed, the Skeleton King Leoric spared a glance at the lich, Kel'Thuzad, as their team prepared to charge for the enemy's keep. The king was taken aback when the lich's gaze met his own. The cult leader appeared to be determining the king's motives. Leoric didn't blame him. He himself did the same thing constantly while watching the others. One could never be too careful, even among sworn allies.

The mounted king turned his attention back to the gates as they lowered, surveying the battlefield that laid ahead of them. “Your aid would be welcome in my lane, necromancer,” he murmured in an attempt to strike up a brief conversation of sorts.

Kel'Thuzad peered over towards his own king—the Lich King, Arthas, who glared at the lich for hesitating to join him at the middle gate of the fortress. To Leoric, he replied in a disinterested tone, “Forgive me, but I am sworn to another king.” With that, he hovered over to Arthas and followed him out the center gate.

Leoric sighed, noticing that he was going to be taking the top lane alone. Again. He kicked his horse's sides somewhat roughly with his metal boots to encourage it to charge. 

Along the way, minions of the opposing, goody-two-shoes side were trampled underneath his steed's mighty hooves. The Skeleton King was surprised to make it all the way to the enemy fortress unopposed by heroes. That was a first. 

With a few swings of his two-handed mace, he toppled one of the towers within a matter of moments. Before he could get excited about his so-far successful one-man siege, he heard a haunting voice call out for aid.

“Protect the Lich King at all costs! Assist us!” Kel'Thuzad shouted out to anyone who might listen while encasing the sniper Nova in an icy tomb before she could catch their team off guard. 

Why did his master always insist upon fighting in the middle of the battlefield? Sadly, he had known Arthas to do this even since the day they first met, and apparently, no council of his would ever change the death knight's mind regarding the wisdom of this.

“Anub'arak get back here!” Arthas hissed through his teeth at the spider lord, who was now burrowing away at an almost humorously fast speed for the creature's size in the opposite direction. The Lich King growled and decapitated several minions with one enraged swing of Frostmourne. Some of those minions belonged to his team, unfortunately. Oh well.

If Leoric had eyes to roll anymore, he would have done so at this point. 

Well, that explained where the enemy team had gone off to, at least. It was a shame, too, as the mad king was positive that if he could have just a few more minutes, he might’ve pushed to the enemy's core all by himself. However, he _did_ swear loyalty to his unlikely new team, and he didn't want to betray them as he had been betrayed in the past.

Planting the head of his mace into the ground, he focused on separating his spirit from his bones, allowing his soul to roam freely to the center of the battlefield. 

Once it arrived there, his physical body teleported to him and merged once again with his spectral form. He reached forward with a ghostly hand and plucked the life energy right from Murky's body before squashing its poorly hidden egg with his weapon. 

The poor murloc hardly stood a chance. All that was left was the fish it was holding, helplessly flopping around on the cold dirt. 

Leoric then shambled over to Arthas and started aiding the fellow king in breaking down the wall.

Arthas looked over his shoulder at the other undead king and made a “hmph” noise while slashing at the gate, made brittle by Kel'Thuzad's frost magic. 

Was he jealous to have to share leadership of the team with another king? Leoric was starting to get this impression. It worried him deeply to think that this man might turn on him at any moment just to have the glory all to himself. 

Leoric wouldn't have it. The Skeleton King would _prove_ his superiority to this Lich King to prevent himself from being usurped, as surely the rest of the team would much rather side with a more powerful and competent ruler. Wouldn’t they?

The Skeleton King drew back his weapon and swung it in a wide arc, barely missing Arthas' helmet while making the final blow on the gate. As it shattered, Leoric stormed in first as Arthas and Kel'Thuzad followed behind. The three of them proceeded on their warpath, destroying every structure they came across inside the keep. 

Before they could even approach the core, however, once they were finished, they found Anub'arak already chipping away at the enemy's core, busting it open with his scythe-like claws. By himself.

Kel'Thuzad, Leoric, and Arthas stood there in awe as their minds registered the fact that the spider lord had seized the core on his own, and now they were looking at the Nexus emblem, emerging from the enemy's core and floating above the rubble, as if to taunt them.

Anub'arak sluggishly turned around and gave the three as smug of an expression that an insectoid such as himself could manage, then said, “I was a king once, too, you know.” 

He burrowed underground once more and fled the enemy keep while Arthas clumsily climbed atop the rubble to retrieve the core's prize. These things were needed, after all, if they were all to earn their freedom and return to their respective lands.

The lich of the group sighed and rubbed the forehead area of his skull as if he were feeling a headache coming on. Old habit, he supposed. “You know, just once, I would like for him to stay with the group, is all...” He looked up at the Skeleton King and “smiled” as much as a reanimated skeleton could. “Thank you for coming to assist us, King Leoric… I'm not sure what we would have done, had you not aided us.”

“You’d have died a second time, I suppose,” Leoric mused with a slight tone of humor to his voice.

“It would have been my third time, actually,” Kel'Thuzad replied with somewhat of a grin. He paused momentarily before correcting himself. “No, fourth. I think…”

Leoric waved his gauntlet dismissively. “Who can keep count, anyway?” he asked as the three of them headed back to their base. 

He and Kel'Thuzad got left behind due to how slowly they walked on foot. Well, Kel'Thuzad didn't have any feet; he floated, but he did so in no particular hurry.

“He never waits on me,” Kel'Thuzad sighed, watching Arthas disappear into the distance while riding atop his steed, Invincible, whose name was quite misleading.

“It's such a shame, really. No _good_ king leaves his loyal followers behind,” Leoric replied, shaking his head with disappointment.

The lich gave him a warning glare. “I've already told you once before: Arthas is my king, and I won't leave his side no matter what.”

The Skeleton King's voice softened as he defended his stance. “I'm only saying that you deserve better treatment than that for your servitude, Kel'Thuzad.”

“I _know_ what you're trying to say, Leoric, and for the last time: I will not serve you,” Kel'Thuzad replied bluntly, refusing to look at the king any longer.

There was an odd silence between the two of them while Leoric thought of the right words to say. 

“Can you blame me? It would have been nice to have someone like you at my side when I was alive. I think you could have done a lot to prevent the things that happened to me and my family. Arthas is very fortunate to have you as his second-in-command.”

“I know,” Kel'Thuzad murmured in a voice that had gone from being bitter and stern to unhappy and hurt. 

Leoric suddenly felt guilty for having said what he did. He hadn't expected it to be something that would wound the lich in a way he hadn't witnessed before. “It would be nice if he noticed that for a change, and I’m sure you’ve thought the same thing at times.” 

Without another word exchanged, the lich picked up his speed with the intent of leaving Leoric at the back of the group.

“It's going to be a shame,” Leoric began to say, the intriguing words causing Kel'Thuzad—ever curious—to halt and hover in one place without turning his head to look at the king, “when we return to our homes, once this is all said and done. Perhaps I have been…aggressive in my attempts to recruit you, and I apologize for that. Personal motivations aside, it's been pleasant getting to know you during our time trapped here in the Nexus… I think I shall miss your company.”

After Kel'Thuzad was finished with hearing him out, the lich did not reply. Instead, he continued on his way back to the fortress to prepare for when the heroes would no doubt recover, and the battle would rage on once again.

Leoric, for the most part, anticipated the necromancer's reaction. He was used to disappointment, and he wasn’t sure why he bothered with hope anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

“Why aren't you with the others?” Kel'Thuzad folded his skeletal hands into his…where his lap _would_ have been, if he had a lower half, as he sat down beside Leoric, who was seated outside of the camp with his own little campfire going. “You should be celebrating today's victory, should you not?”

The Skeleton King opened his jaw and poured the ale from his mug down what was left of his throat, feeling it graze his withered tongue before spilling out from his ribcage and onto his armor. He could just barely taste it, but undeath made his senses so numb that the effort was hardly worth it. 

But he kept drinking and trying to remember the taste of ale and the feeling of drunkenness, yet the more he pretended, the more he started to remember that he was a very depressed drunk. He stared into the sorry-looking fire with his hollow eye sockets and let out a weary groan. 

“It's not as if I can feast with the lot of them, anyway,” he grumbled.

Kel'Thuzad seemed to smirk a little as he said, “It's not as if you can drink, either, but here you are doing it despite that fact…”

Leoric tipped his empty mug in the necromancer's direction and shrugged lazily. “Yeah, well…” He trailed off in his words, knowing that what the other undead man had said could not really be contested. 

Opening his hand, the mug rolled from Leoric’s palm and clattered to the ground before the sulking king folded his arms and leaned back against the rock behind him. “So, have you come to assassinate me, then? I had a feeling you would sooner or later. I didn't want to think _you_ of all people would be the one to do it, but I've always been bad at guessing this sort of thing. I mean, obviously, or else I never would’ve ended up this way in the first place.”

The cult leader gave the mad king a puzzled expression and shoved his shoulder with his palm. “Oh, come now, if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't have stopped to have a chat with you beforehand.”

“Is that so?” Leoric asked, turning to face Kel'Thuzad with what looked like an amused smirk.

Kel'Thuzad “grinned” back. “You wouldn't have seen me coming.”

The Skeleton King reached out to brush the back of his hand across Kel’Thuzad’s cold jawline, and the necromancer recoiled in astonishment, peering at Leoric analytically to discern his intentions.

“That would be a shame,” said Leoric. “I would have liked for the last thing I ever saw to be your lovely face…”

They looked at each other for a lot longer than was comfortable for either of them, given the nature of their unusual relationship. 

Afterward, Leoric snapped out of the stupor he deluded himself into. “E-Erm… Sorry, I, ah… I guess I was convincing myself a little _too_ well that I was feeling drunk,” he apologized with an awkward ethereal laugh, pulling his hand away and rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

“It's quite alright,” Kel'Thuzad said calmly while straightening out his kilt and collecting his thoughts. “I'm just…surprised that you would say that. I heard that you once had a wife,” he mentioned, once again peering at the other man searchingly.

Sadness returned to Leoric's visage as he turned his head back to face the fire. “Aye, you remind me a little of her.”

“Do you mind if I asked what became of her?” the necromancer responded carefully, unsure of whether it was appropriate to ask. He always had an inquisitive mind, and he couldn't resist his desire for all types of knowledge, from arcane to mundane.

With a heavy heart—metaphorically speaking, of course—the Skeleton King replied, “I killed her.”

Kel'Thuzad's appeared solemn in reaction to this, but the king went on to explain further.

“It wasn't I who carried out the deed,” Leoric said. “But I ordered her death. So, it may as well have been me who did it with my own two hands.”

At a loss for better words, all that the lich could think to ask was: “Why?”

“I thought she had betrayed me,” Leoric answered. “I thought she was plotting against me. In the end, turned out that I was wrong. I told you that I had a bad eye for spotting traitors.” 

The king looked around himself to see if he had any more ale. Apparently, he was out. Already? Curses.

Kel'Thuzad picked the mug up off the ground and set it upright. He would consider fetching the king more ale. Maybe. When he was done questioning him, anyway. “Do you still love her?”

Leoric threw a twig into the fire and prodded at the campfire with a larger stick. “You ever been married, Kel'Thuzad?” was his only reply.

“No,” the necromancer said flatly, watching the flames grow.

The king grunted as an acknowledgment of the response. “A lover, then?”

“Not really.” Kel'Thuzad looked visibly uncomfortable now that he was the one having to answer questions that made him a bit uneasy.

Turning to look at his company with a mystified expression, Leoric said, “What? Really? But I thought—”

He leaned closer to the lich and murmured, “But I thought you and Arthas…” He was silenced when he noticed the angry look in the glow that made up Kel'Thuzad's “eyes”. “I just assumed… Well…”

“ _Everyone_ assumes,” the cult leader grumbled, crossing his arms.

“But you like him, right?” Leoric asked, pushing his luck with this line of questioning.

“That's none of your business,” Kel'Thuzad snapped. To make it more obvious that he was getting angry, he threw a frost bolt at the tiny campfire, which extinguished it immediately.

Were it not for the moonlight, the two undead men would have been sitting in total darkness. Kel'Thuzad suddenly regretted losing his temper. He was no fire mage, so he couldn’t easily reignite the fire, especially not with his powerful frost magic encasing the half-burned logs.

“Well, thanks,” the mad king growled sarcastically. “It only took me about half an hour to get that started!”

Leoric rolled over onto his side and folded his arms, looking as if he were about to go to sleep with a rock, of all things, as his pillow. Too bad that he _couldn't_ sleep. 

Actually, he could _simulate_ the act of sleeping, but it wasn't at all the same.

They didn't talk for a long while. Leoric waited for Kel'Thuzad to take the hint that he was being dismissed and go back to the main camp where the rest of their party was located, but Kel'Thuzad didn't budge. 

The necromancer wasn't sure why, but a part of him wanted to stay. The more he thought about it, the more he felt as if he owed it to the Skeleton King to somehow make amends. 

After all, they wouldn't be spending too much longer together. One more victory, and then they would all be going back home. That could be as soon as tomorrow or a few weeks to come, but either way, it was so close now.

Kel'Thuzad was starting to realize that Leoric had been so kind to him and had tried so hard to build a friendship with him, but he had been so cold and rejecting to the Skeleton King. 

Sure, he would occasionally make the effort to have a pleasant conversation with the mad king, but Kel’Thuzad was more often frigid in every way. The cult leader couldn’t explain to himself why he cared, but he didn't want his new ally, of sorts, to remember him in a negative way. Somehow, it…it felt _wrong_.

Leoric squirmed when he felt bony fingers comb through his long, wispy hair. His wife used to do that, a long time ago, if she would catch him asleep in the bed before her. It always had a way of helping him rest better on nights when his mind just couldn't stop worrying about this or that. The gesture was very soothing, even now with someone else doing it.

“Your hair reminds me of Arthas', as it is now,” Kel'Thuzad said in a mournful voice while he played with the long strands of hair, admiring how soft it seemed and wishing he could actually feel the texture. If only he had skin. He imagined it would be like touching unwoven silk.

In a world-weary, pleading, and hoarse voice, Leoric mumbled, “Please spend the night beside me…” 

Shortly after, he could hear bone tapping against the stone. To his amazement, Kel'Thuzad had laid down beside him. 

Turning around while remaining on his side, Leoric draped an arm around the necromancer's waist from behind and dragged him close so that their cold bones and tattered armor pressed against one another's.

Kel'Thuzad wasn't his wife, and Leoric wasn't his king, but at least for tonight, none of that mattered to either of them.

**Author's Note:**

> "Hey, would it be so bad if I stayed? I'm just a ghost out of his grave."
> 
> Recommended Listening: Ghosting by Mother, Mother


End file.
